Category: Afghanistan

Elijah J. Magnier Many Iranians question the benefits of arming and financing Iran’s many allies in the Middle East while Iran is suffering the harshest ever US “maximum pressure”. Iran’s allies are spread over Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Palestine. Is Iranian support for these allies the main cause of the US’s aggressive attitude…

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif shared on Friday several stories of former commander of IRGC’s Quds Force General Qassem Suleimani who was martyred in a US strike on Baghdad international airport last January. In an interview with Beirut-based Al-Mayadeen Arab TV, Zarif said that Suleimani was courageous, smart and humble. He used to care…

Darius Shahtahmasebi U.S. Air Force Capt. Christopher Bowser, left, and Brendon Clark of the Royal New Zealand Air Force pose at the Combined Air and Space Operations Center, July 2, 2018, at Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar. Stephanie Serrano | AP Last month the coalition government declared the end of New Zealand Defence Force deployments…

Elijah J. Magnier In Lebanon, the Secretary-General of Hezbollah Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has warned that the ongoing anti-government protests might lead to “chaos, collapse and civil war ”. What is the scenario for a civil war? Is it a realistic possibility? The Lebanese people think the current upheaval was triggered by monthly taxes imposed on the messaging…

TEHRAN (FNA)- An Islamic State offshoot has amassed around 5,000 militants in Northern Afghanistan on the border of post-Soviet republics of Central Asia, the director of Russia’s FSB warned, adding that many of them have fought in Syria. “Especially worrying is re-deployment of terrorist groups into Northern provinces of Afghanistan,” Alexander Bortnikov told chiefs of…

ST.PETERSBURG, April 18. /TASS/ Some 1,500 foreign terrorists, who took part in combat actions in the Middle East, are in Europe now, Director of Russia’s Federal Security Service Alexander Bortnikov told a conference on countering international terrorism on Thursday. “Some 1,500 out of 5,000 terrorists have arrived in the European Union from the Middle East,…

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian President Hassan Rouhani slammed the US for protecting terrorists in Syria and Iraq, and warned that Washington is relocating the ISIL (known as ISIS and Daesh) terrorists to Afghanistan. Addressing a tripartite summit on Syria that was also attended by his Russian and Turkish counterparts in Sochi on Thursday, Rouhani stated, “Unfortunately,…

Elijah J. Magnier | @ejmalrai “Islamic State” (ISIS) has been defeated in Iraq and Syria, regardless of the presence of a few tactical remaining pockets. Moreover, following the decision of the international community and the other countries in the region to end the war in Syria, al-Qaeda is facing infighting and at the same time…

Popular outrage in Afghanistan sees the Islamic State avoiding responsibility for beheadings. By Justin Podur Kabul is Afghanistan’s capital, a city of over five million people that has transformed completely since 2001. Kandahar was, and remains, a stronghold of the Taliban. The highway between Kabul and Kandahar, which passes through Wardak, Ghazni, and Zabul, is…

Médecins Sans Frontières has taken a decision to publically release the initial outcomes of its own MSF review of what happened before, during and immediately after the US airstrikes on the hospital in Kunduz. “The hospital was razed to the ground after a wave of attack from the air. We lost our ability to treat…

By Marjorie Cohn In one of the most despicable incidents of the United States’ 14-year war in Afghanistan, U.S. troops bombed a hospital in Kunduz, killing 22 people, including patients, three children, and medical personnel from Doctors Without Borders, or MSF. Thirty-seven people were injured, including 19 staff members in the Oct. 3, 2015, attack. U.S. forces…

MSF demands explanations after deadly airstrikes hit hospital in Kunduz “MSF is disgusted by the recent statements coming from some Afghanistan government authorities justifying the attack on its hospital in Kunduz. These statements imply that Afghan and US forces working together decided to raze to the ground a fully functioning hospital – with more than…